“Portland is famous for its vibrant biking culture, but the city’s infrastructure hasn’t caught up with the number of bikers on the streets. How do we create bikeways that will not only protect current cyclists, but also encourage more people to ride? As part of GOOD Ideas for Cities Portland, a team from THINK.urban presented its idea for creating a system of bike highways that run throughout the city. Instead of relegating cyclists to side streets and bike paths, the new bikeways would take over major Portland thoroughfares, making bikes more visible and creating more direct routes that would shorten ride times. Witnessing the shift from streets of mostly cars to mostly bikes will also start to create a sense that riders are prized and protected as a major transportation solution, not forced to stay in painted lanes.”

Challenge: Portland is known worldwide as a bike town; yet we have stalled when it comes to infrastructure. How might we create a major new bikeway that helps make bicycling as visible, safe, convenient, and pleasant for as many people as possible?

[Originally written by Jason King, Allison Duncan and Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman]

THINK.urban, recently completed the presentation of our various concepts for GOOD Ideas for Cities Portland. The team was one of six, which included Wieden+Kennedy, Ziba, Sincerely Interested, OMFGco, and ADXPortland, all tackling tough ideas. The THINK.urban concepts were developed alongside working alongside our urban leader, BikePortland.org founder Jonathan Maus, who presented the challenge:

“Now it’s time to do the big projects that present a challenge to politicians and the status quo, but that also present an exciting opportunity for the health of our city. But what we’re missing is a a truly game-changing bikeway that connects a Portland neighborhood to the city center. How might we create a major new bikeway that helps make bicycling as visible, safe, convenient, and pleasant for as many people as possible?”

THE CONTEXT

Portland is a great city for cycling – and has a lot of great infrastructure and programs to support and grow ridership.

This gives us a ridership of almost 7% of commuters, which makes Portland the top large city in North America for ridership – (sorry Minneapolis)

The statistics are a bit different when compared to other cities around the globe, where Portland is way down on the list. Using some comparative metrics, we set the bar for ‘World Class’ at 30%, meaning if Portland is to truly become a world-class bicycling city, we need to expand significantly beyond our current level.

THE TARGET: INTERESTED BUT CONCERNED

For Portland to become ‘World Class’ we cannot keep doing the same things, but need to re-envision the infrastructure that make’s bicycle a choice that is on-par with other modes of transportation. As seen in a much published graphic, we’ve already captured the ‘Strong and Fearless’ and have no worries about the ‘Enthused and Confident’. What we need to target is the 60% of people who are interested in cycling, but concerned about safety, wayfinding, and other issues.

Looking at the research, we found there are three elements that are necessary to capture the 60% that are interested but concerned. A system has to have three elements, which are:

SAFE:

CONNECTED:

LEGIBLE:

THE SYSTEM: PDX LINK

To make a system that is Safe, Connected, and Legible – we looked at a variety of factors. One aspect of the system design included branding and system graphics, which were envisioned as a chain which evoked the idea of links – the system became a noun and a verb – PDX LINK – seen with the ‘green’ paint inside as well, which reflected the plans for the concept to increase wayfinding of bike routes.

Another aspect was to incorporate the existing quadrant system, each acting as a link in the chain of PDX LINK. The radiating graphic below depicts the 5 quadrants, a play on geography that makes Portland a unique place to live. Each quad, including North, gets a unique color scheme, along with a simple 2 letter designation that is also incorporated into signage and other graphics.

There was a conceptual mapping component as well including our proposal for two-way cycletracks on main routes, connected by the wayfinding based on quadrants – which is seen above. Each of these ‘highways’ would be located within 1 miles of all residents and businesses, and fed by a system of local streets.

Using Portland Streets as examples, we determined a specific typology of streets in a hierarchy, starting with the highways, and including the boulevards, corridors, and greenways as a complete system. A couple of examples of before and after sections show the change, and inclusion of a two-way, separated cycletrack that ‘Takes the Lane’ and creates a safe, connected, and legible system.

Starting with these major roadways, the further development of a hierarchy of bike routes, from major Highways and Boulevards, to less traveled Corridors and Greenways – nested inside one another for a complete system. A snapshot of a portion of downtown shows these designations.

The final piece was conceptual sketches – simple before and after graphics to showcase the new idea, on the street. We did a number of them connecting the Cully Neighborhood in Northeast Portland to the Downtown core, using no ‘back street solutions’. The first starts on NE 57th, with a heavily vegetated buffer providing necessary separation from the traffic to ensure safety for riders.

Before

The second is located along East Burnside – where we are recoupling the one-way to include a two way bike route connected across to downtown.

Before

Another option is downtown, along SW Broadway, where the existing cycle-track was expanded near Portland State University. Note wayfinding and access to multiple modes of transportation throughout.

Before

We did many more graphics, which will get shared down the line. A few more ‘after’ shots include Sandy Boulevard and the Burnside Bridge. The opportunity to make ‘cycling an everyday thing’ offers the ability to go for a ride with your favorite dog, or stop by for some roadside bike-powered gelato, and take the whole family for a ride to the Saturday Market. A safe, connected and legible system can make Portland a world-class bike city.

The event was a great success – and the conversation for new bike concepts in Portland and beyond, mixed with some luck and political will, has the potential to elevate the conversation and adopt some new infrastructure changes to make Portland not just a great bike city, but one that can truly hold the distinction as being ‘World Class’. Thanks again to Jonathan Maus from Bikeportland.org – our urban leader who posed our question. The event, which took place at ZIBA Design’s slick new office space, was sold-out and the crowd got into the proposals (including Weiden + Kennedy, Ziba, Sincerely Interested, THINK.urban, ADX, and the Official Manufacturing Company), kicked off by Alissa Walker from GOOD

“CHALLENGE (from BikePortland.org editor Jonathan Maus): How can we create a major new bikeway that helps make bicycling as visible, safe, convenient, and pleasant for as many people as possible? IDEAS (from PSU grad student nonprofit THINK.Urban): “Take a cue from Europe and build two-way cycletracks on Portland’s biggest streets. The two-way lanes would be separated from cars on streets like Sandy, Broadway, and Hawthorne, by a grassy median. “Prioritize bikes on the same level as cars. People are tired of looking at Europe. We want to see these things here now.”

Posting has lagged a bit, but that should change now that we’re moving on to some new things. Stay tuned as we will post some of the ideas from the proposal, along with the PDF of the presentation, during the next week or so.

“What we’re missing is a a truly game-changing bikeway that connects a Portland neighborhood to the city center“

Our challenge is set. As one of the creative teams working on the GOOD Ideas for Cities, we are tasked with coming up with the future of bicycle transportation in Portland. As envisioned by our local expert liason, Jonathan Maus of BikePortland.org the scenario is this:

TRANSPORTATION

When it comes to bicycle transportation, Portland is at a crossroads. We are known worldwide as a bike town; yet we have stalled when it comes to building a network of truly world-class bikeways in the central city. We have picked all the low-hanging fruit. Now it’s time to do the big projects that present a challenge to politicians and the status quo, but that also present an exciting opportunity for the health of our city. But what we’re missing is a a truly game-changing bikeway that connects a Portland neighborhood to the city center. How might we create a major new bikeway that helps make bicycling as visible, safe, convenient, and pleasant for as many people as possible?

Recent historical trends show that while auto use seems to have plateaued, bike use has skyrocketed and shows little sign of tapering off. The biggest risk to making even more significant jumps in bike use is that the vast majority of Portlanders simply feel afraid to ride a bike close to auto traffic. The City of Portland and other local agencies already know what to do and we have some great examples already deployed: the cycle tracks on SW Broadway near PSU and on SW Moody toward the South Waterfront district come to mind. However, those facilities lack connections to the rest of the network and in the case of PSU, they are woefully underdesigned. They are both islands of possibility amid a sea of reality.

The neat thing about this challenge is that in many ways we know what success could look like. Many of our local leaders have been to places like Copenhagen and Amsterdam where bicycling in dense urban environments isn’t just viable, it’s prioritized over auto access. The result is happy, healthy citizens, fewer transportation costs for everyone, and much more efficient and livable city. How do we help Portland move towards that same bicycle-centric reality?

One of the resources that Maus mentioned is the NACTO Urban Biking Design Guide (image excerpt above), of which included Portland transportation planners and traffic engineers were part of a major effort to bring cities across the country together to create a design manual that frees them from the shackles of outdated, state-run, auto-centric design guidelines.

We have until February 16th to prepare concepts, where they will be presented alongside the rest of the teams working on their specific issues. Stay tuned for more info!

The results are in, and the THINK.urban team of Jason King, Allison Duncan and Katrina Johnston is one of the groups that will be presenting as part of the GOOD Ideas for Cities event in Portland, being held on February 16th at Ziba and hosted by Portland State University Graphic Design Department.

From the GOOD site, here’s the all-star list of creative teams who will be presenting that night.

It’s an honor to be in such esteemed company, and we’re excited to find out the specific issue we will be tackling for the event. We will be getting the problem early in 2012, and will have 6 weeks to generate ideas for the February presentation. Stay tuned for more on this.

Say what you want about the furniture giant Ikea, but I appreciate their ability to transfer Scandinavian sensibility into modern American urban living (if you’re into that kind of thing). Overstuffed couches? Give me an apartment-appropriate two-seater sofa any day. Even if you throw in a bookcase and area rug you’re still spending less than a Laz-y-boy and it’s more streamlined to boot. At the risk of sounding like an Ikea spokesperson (too late) I just had to jump at the opportunity to comment on some recent news regarding Ikea’s bid to design part of London’s Olympic Park in 2013.

The neighborhood, named Strand East, will be a full-fledged community-oriented development complete with mixed-use buildings, underground parking, a focus on walkability, and a 350-room hotel all covering 26 acres. Of course the focus will also be on affordability, but also sustainability, in that the neighborhood will hopefully provide an attractive addition to the city after the Olympics are over. Typically plans for Olympic “villages” are unsettling: basically hastily built gigantic blocks constructed solely for the purpose of housing a large amount of people for a short amount of time, with little consideration for the city and people already inhabiting it. Honestly, the images released of the plans remind me of Scandinavian urbanism in general: multi-storied buildings line the blocks and public plazas encircling interior communal courtyards.

Some, like The Pop-Up City, have criticized the concept arguing against a one-size-fits-all style of urbanism and Ikea’s flat-packed construction techniques. However, even a quick glance at Ikea’s approach to housing, BoKlok, illustrates ideas that most of us can get behind. In city full of auto-centric planning and suburban sprawl, who wouldn’t want to set down a few terraced houses or apartment buildings focused on people (not cars!), public space, efficient space planning, safety, and renewable materials? These basic concepts in public space and community-oriented development are fantastic; visibility and safety, public space and community, affordable and human-scaled buildings. Unfortunately, people focus on what they think of when they contemplate Ikea-created buildings: flat-packed, generic, and cheaply-built laminate. But with all of the social benefits incorporated in the design, I personally would jump at an opportunity to live in a place like this, and I’d rather have necessary housing built for a single event outlast its original purpose and add to its urban environment.